Keeper of the Black Stones (5 page)

“Hola class, como estas?”
Mrs. Caswell asked. It was her usual greeting. Standard fare. No problem.

“Hola, muy bien,”
we all replied, emotionless. Now everyone in the class held their breath; the game of calling on students for individual answers was about to begin.

I began praying that she wouldn't call on me.

Spanish, and every other foreign language, had always been Greek to me. I was good at math, but I honestly couldn't take credit for that. I'd grown up with a physics professor as a grandfather, and had heard mathematical and physics equations tossed around ever since I could remember. My talent in that particular realm was purely a product of good genes and exposure. Then again, being good at it never made me love it. My real passion was history.

Both of my parents had been high school history teachers, and they had read to me endlessly about ancient civilizations, wars caused by power-hungry dictators, and battles that destroyed entire civilizations. My parents and I had done a lot together–fishing, camping, trips to the beach–but the nights when the two of them sat on the edge of my bed, reading tales by Shelby Foot about the Civil War, or Medieval novels by Bernard Cornwell … those were the memories that I treasured. Those were the times I missed the most, and they had colored my development. I was good at math and physics, but I was a history buff at heart, and no mistake. The blood and guts, the mystery, the adventure…

Unfortunately, I had to focus on my Spanish lessons at the moment. Senora Caswell wheeled the TV into the center of the room and announced in Spanish that we would be watching another episode of
Senda Prohibida
(
Forbidden Path
). It was a Mexican soap opera, and was supposed to teach us about their culture. Personally I thought the only reason we watched it was because Senora Caswell actually liked it.

At least it would keep me out of trouble, for the most part; no textbooks for watching a soap opera, after all. The television came on and half the class promptly dropped their heads onto their desks to go to sleep. Predictable as clockwork. I leaned back in my chair and flipped open my grandfather's diary. This was exactly the chance I'd been waiting for. I knew I probably shouldn't read the journal, but that certainly wasn't going to stop me.

Not that I was expecting much. Doc was a physics professor, after all. Pretty dry stuff. I figured I'd find some long equations that I couldn't understand, or a scribbled definition of a theory that would fly right over my head. I was quite surprised when I found a real diary entry on the first page.
The writing jumped right in, without any preliminaries, as though I'd come into the middle of a conversation in progress. What I saw shocked me.

My oldest and dearest friend, John Fleming, surprised me greatly earlier this week. He has asked me to view a relic that his son Nicholas discovered in the Middle East. I am by no means an archeologist, nor am I a treasure hunter as the Flemings are, so I'm not sure what to expect. I've been told that the object has symbols inscribed on the surface, which may be linked to the language of mathematics rather than linguistics. If this is true, I suppose that I am in fact better equipped than the average historian. That doesn't mean that I like it.

I'm looking forward to seeing John again, though. It's been a long time. I hope I'm able to help in some small way. And I have to admit at least a small amount of curiosity.

I frowned. This didn't sound like the Doc I knew at all. This sounded more like the plot of an Indiana Jones film. And a good one. What on earth was Doc into? I flipped the page over and read the next entry.

Met John and his son at Dartmouth College earlier this morning, at Nicholas' private research facility. It would seem that John's personal fortune has gone a long way toward funding his son's research! I doubt that the school knows about half of the equipment in this particular part of the building.

I snorted at this. My grandfather moved in a very specific crowd. All of his friends were physics geniuses, and like peas in a pod. Except that from what I could tell, some of them had more money than God. Evidently this John was one of those friends. Doc's finances were generous but were also a bit more … earthbound. I went back to the journal, smiling at the metaphor.

John and Nicholas signed me into the building and led me past two security checkpoints (I later learned that the security was more of John's private staff, which made me wonder), and into a basement. There I saw something that affected me in a way I don't think I can explain. I'm not sure whether words can express my feelings, but I'm absolutely determined to try. For the sake of my own peace of mind, if nothing else, and because I think that it may be important.

Two large black stones lay on the floor of the office. They were flat slabs of dark, glossy material, almost like obsidian, and possessed an other-worldly beauty. I don't mind telling you that they gave off a distinctly … unsettling vibe. Each was marked in exactly the same way, and was exactly the same size–twice as large as I am, more or less. Large enough for a grown man to lie upon. It wasn't the size that drew me, though. It was the humming. The stones sang, as though they were calling out to me. My blood thrummed in my veins until I thought my heart would burst. Before I knew what I was doing, I had crossed the room to lay my hands against the first black stone.

The stone's touch electrified me, as I think I knew it would. The texture of the top was smooth to my fingers, polished to a fine finish. The sides and underside were rough, though, almost like sand paper, like the stones had been chiseled from a larger slab. Each stone had carved on its smooth face a set of characters–lines of unfamiliar symbols and signs. John was correct to assume these to be mathematical, although I couldn't have said what they meant. I thought for a moment that they resembled Mayan formulas I'd studied, and then the whole world blurred. The symbols suddenly began speaking to me, and revealing what they meant … and the power they possessed.

I paused, took a breath, and went back to the start of the entry. Reread the words. This time I slowed down and concentrated on each word, to be sure that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. The passage read the same way the second time. And the third. My heart skipped a couple of times, and I turned the page. I was skipping passages now, anxious to find out what had happened.

After all these years of research and speculation, we have proven my Ribbon Theory to be right. And in the most unlikely of ways! Of course I'm overjoyed, can hardly contain my excitement, and yet … Nicholas' suggestion that we go public with this information … that we consider actually using these Stones … frightens me to my very core.

We have been over the information–the facts–at least a million times over the past few days. We've gone over what we know to be true time and again, and have a very rough idea of how the process works, how the … jumps … take place. But there is still so much that we don't know. So much that could go wrong. And if it did? I have to assume that it could mean the destruction of something very important, possibly time itself, and therefore our very world.

Nicholas, I'm afraid, can only see the fame, fortune, and … power that the Stones represent. Of course that's what he sees. His father made his name and fortune seeing those very things, and now Nicholas wishes to make his own mark on the world. But at what cost? He's far too reckless for my liking, and I don't trust him. I'm afraid that he's spoken to others about his discovery, and I believe there's even a chance that he's sought buyers for these Stones. Internationally. John, of course, denies it, but I wouldn't put it past the man. Despite our long friendship, I've never been truly comfortable with his brand of ethics.

Now that we've confirmed my Ribbon Theory, I've started working on something new. The question is, if time is a ribbon, bending back on itself, and there are windows through which one may pass, what happens when one does? More specifically, is there a time change between the two … planes? I believe that there is, and I believe that I've found an answer to that question. The equation I've been working with is DT*C*365 (solar cycle) = TE.

TE= Time Elapsed

DT= Duration of time (Present Day–Distance in past traveled)

C= Constant variable is .1440 (.001% of minutes in a day)

There are problems, of course. This isn't a true answer. The formula, although sound in its mathematical form, is still missing a variable that I can't quite understand. The Stones allow me to anticipate the approximate arrival of my comings and goings between present and past, and physics–mathematics–demands that there must be a reason for that. The equation should be the answer, and yet it doesn't quite work. It seems to collapse in short increments of time. Something is not quite right.

I shook my head, trying to clear it of that jumble of physics and mathematics, and drew back from the journal. What on earth
was
this? Was my grandfather actually losing it? This last entry certainly didn't encourage faith in his … rational mind. Though it fit in with some recent odd behavior. To say that Doc had been acting strange lately would have been an extreme understatement. He'd been constantly preoccupied. Staring off into space, talking to himself … I'd had full conversations with him, only to realize at the end that he hadn't heard a word I'd said. I thought at the time that he was simply having trouble with his hearing. That had been shocking enough, since I knew quite well that I could mumble a comment under my breath 20 paces away and he'd make a point of telling me what I said. As if he was proving how good his hearing was. I would bet a year's worth of physics homework that he could still do just that.

So that left two explanations for this so-called journal and his recent lack of attention. His seeming descent into absent-minded professor. One: it was some sort of creative writing exercise for a retired–and bored–physics professor. Two: Doc was going absolutely, certifiably, and irrevocably insane.

I looked up quickly to make sure that the TV was still on and that Senora Caswell was otherwise occupied, then bent back to the journal.

Today, everything went wrong. Nicholas insisted that I was withholding information from him. We have a basic idea of how the Stones work, but not why, or even when. I've told him that I do not have any further information, but he doesn't believe me. He believes, in fact, that I have better communication with the Stones than he does–which
is true–and that I can manipulate them–which is not. For himself, Nicholas cannot fully read the Stones, and must depend on me for translation. This does not sit well with someone who is accustomed to getting his way in all things. When I told him, again, that I could not tell him how to jump through time, he lost his temper. John intervened, but not until Nicholas threatened me, as well as my family, if I didn't reveal the secrets of the Stones. To be honest, I believe that John wants to know as badly as his son, and held himself in check for as long as he could, hoping that I would reveal something. It's hard to convince both father and son that I don't know how the Stones work, when I don't know my own role in the situation.

On a side note, anyone reading this journal
(I gulped, and had to stop myself from glancing over my shoulder)
will notice that I have begun treating the Stones as proper nouns, with capitalization. I assure you that this is not a mistake, nor an oversight on my part. I do this intentionally, for the simple–or not so simple–reason that the Stones seem to me to be living, breathing, and even feeling entities. I do not believe that they are just slabs of rock. I believe that they are something … more. What that is, I cannot yet say.

I slammed the journal shut, and sat staring at it for several minutes. As though that would make the words unsaid. Or reality less true. It was official: Doc was losing his mind. He actually thought he was living in some crazy sci-fi film. He was inventing conspiracy theories, and casting himself as the hero. Ridiculous. What would I find next, aliens attacking?

I realized that my breath was coming fast, my chest heaving, and forced myself to calm down. Fiction. It was all fiction. Something in Doc's imagination, that was all.

I still found myself holding my breath when I opened the journal again. Something about it…

I have done my best to reason with Nicholas, both in person and by messenger. I have
tried everything within my power to bring him back. In return, he has made no less than two attempts on my life, that I know of. Dresden, as he is known here, continues to be convinced that I know how the Stones work. He has proven that he will stop at nothing to obtain that information. I do not know whether he plans to return to our time period. His last comments lead me to believe that he seeks to reshape the world to his liking, through the Stones. I have little doubt that the man has gone completely insane. I do not believe that I will be able to convince John of this. John is, as ever, convinced that his son is harmless.

I glanced at the date of the entry again. Did it really say 1481? What did that mean? What was Doc thinking? And what exactly was he into? I looked up, wondering, and noticed that Senora Caswell was looking directly at me. My heart dropped several inches.

“I hope you are following along, Cisco.” She used my Spanish name, of course; a name that I'd found when I Googled ‘Mexican Restaurants' at the start of the year. A name that I now found ridiculous.

“Si Senora … muy bien!”
I said with an emphatic nod of confirmation.